Family pays tribute as Nellie dies at 108

Nellie Smales, who would have been 109 in August, was the 38th oldest person in the UK.

She died on Wednesday at Brook House Residential Home, Morda, near Oswestry.

Her only child Geoffrey, 83, said his mother had never been ill, even when she passed her century, and she had died of old age.

"She had TB as a child, but then she went to an open air school and never had an illness since. She never even had a broken bone," he said.

Mrs Smales was born in Barnsley in 1904 and grew up in the town.

She married in 1928, when she was 24, and she and her husband Clifford moved to Torquay shortly after the birth of Geoffrey.

"She was a very simple woman," he said. "By that I mean she had little education. But she was humble, self-effacing, loving, and she was just ordinary, and that is wonderful.

"All through my boyhood I was very very ill and I was in bed for two years on end.

"She had to care for me. It must have been hard for her only son to be on the point of death every year.

"Her love was so wonderful and patient through that time."

Despite the difficulties of Geoffrey's illness, Mrs Smales's marriage thrived, and she and Clifford were married for 46 years until Clifford's death in 1974.

After her husband's death, Mrs Smales continued to live alone until she was 99 – although she had a peculiar diet.

"After my dad died, Mam stopped cooking," Mr Smales said. "From the age of 70 to 99 she lived on coffee and chocolate biscuits. She went and bought some cooked chicken from the supermarket once a week but she never used the cooker.

"We had to do the coffee in the microwave and I wasn't allowed to use the cooker in case I dirtied it."

Just before her 100th birthday, Mrs Smales decided to move to Oswestry to be near her family – Geoffrey, who was a maths teacher at Moreton Hall School at the time, his wife Mary, their two adopted children Andrew and Margaret, and Margaret's husband Dave and their two children Matthew and Megan, now aged 13 and eight.

"We lived in Oswestry, so when she was looking for somewhere to move to she came to Brook House so that we could come and visit her and be near her," he said.

"During the past few years she was deaf, and in the last year her eyesight was poor, so we couldn't even write notes to her any more. Then she started to get terrible dementia, and soon after that she began to deteriorate."

Mrs Smales's funeral will be held on Thursday at Pentrebychan Crematorium in Wrexham at 11am. During the service her favourite hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful, will be sung.

"It's sad because there won't be many people there as she's outlived all her friends," Mr Smales said.

"Her brother and sister are both dead and I'm her only child. We've asked the undertakers to sing lustily during the service though, and hopefully we'll do her proud."